Browsing treasures at Stone House Antiques

My friend Diane and I spent about an hour at The Vermont Country Store in Bellows Falls and then we loaded our purchases and off we ventured further along Route 103 toward Chester, Vermont. Growing up in Saxton's River, Vermont, it was a short ride to Chester and I remember it well. As a child, our family dentist was in Chester. Dr. Vatne was his name, and he had a thick German accent. At least I think it was German. I was terrified of him. I couldn't understand him and I swear he asked me if I wanted Novocain and I probably just shook my head "no" like I would to anything he asked me. It was never a pleasant experience. Luckily, my painful early memories of Chester were replaced several years ago by finding a really interesting antiques shop there… Stone House Antique Center. It's at 557 Route 103 South, probably a 10-minute drive from Vermont Country Store. There was a pretty good crowd of vehicles in the parking lot. This vast group shop is well known. Set up as a traditional antiques multi-dealer shop, there's essentially two wings of booths in the L-shaped building with entrances at the end of each. You can enter, do a whole sweep of the store and exit without having to backtrack. I usually enter on the right, where the booths seem to be larger and set up more like vignettes. There's one booth that is completely devoted to beautiful Polish pottery. In gorgeous blues, oranges and yellows, it has intricate patterns and floral shapes that have been hand painted on dense white clay and fired at very high temperatures. Though not antiques, Polish pottery is stunning and quite collectible. With few exceptions, the rest of the store is primarily true antiques and vintage items. Considered fair priced, the store is almost always full. You rarely see an empty spot available so I'm guessing the dealers do quite well here. There's usually plenty of staff on hand as well and everyone is friendly and helpful. Stone House bills itself as southern Vermont's largest and most diverse antiques group shop and I don't doubt it. With around 95 individual dealers, the variety here is quite good. Diane and I went up and down every aisle. Diane was smitten with every small 1- or 2-drawer stand she came across. She was tempted more than once but wasn't sure where she'd put one if she bought it. I was tempted by an antique game table. It was Victorian in style with some inlay wood and four slender legs. The hinged top could open, turning it from a narrow, rectangular table, to a perfect square… exactly big enough for four people to sit at for a game of cards or a board game. I took a picture of it and its tag because I wanted to think about it. Well, you know what happens when you just want to think about it… it most assuredly will be gone when you finally decide to pull the trigger and buy it. Stone House Antiques is open seven days a week, year-round except for Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve & Day. They have an open house "Dealer Day" the first Tuesday of each month and hold seasonal special events as well. Expect snacks and great deals for those special days. I only bought two postcards and Diane left empty-handed. I'm still thinking about that game table though I might hold out for one with more rugged looking legs. Card games here in Dublin can get pretty boisterous.